European Central Bank raises interest rates for the first time in over a decade

The European Central Bank announced Thursday that it would raise interest rates by 0.5% to combat 8.6% inflation.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said at a press conference that inflation is expected to remain "undesirably high for some time," as a result of continued pressures from energy and food prices and "pipeline pressures in the pricing chain."

She said higher inflationary pressures are also the result of the depreciation of the euro exchange rate.

The euro has exchanged for more than the U.S. dollar for the past 20 years, until last week when the euro exchanged about evenly with the dollar. 

Inflation is "expected to remain above our target for some time," even with the interest rate hike, Lagarde also said.

The last time the ECB raised rates was in 2011, according to CNN. Rates have been negative in Europe since 2014. 

Inflation rose 8.6% in June for countries that use the euro. It is still not as high as it is in the United States, where the inflation rate is 9.1%.